When making watermelon rind pickles...?

Question

when making watermelon rind pickles, is it necessary to remove every bit of the red or is leaving a little bit okay? And does anyone have any good recipes for them? I have one but i don't know if it is standard.

Answer 1

a bit of pink is fine.... as for a recipe my mom has one but I don't know it... I know hers takes almost a month to make!!! She does something like boiling a cup of sugar into the rinds every day for 28 days... then she cans it with a stick of cinnamon and some cloves.... I don't know the exacts so my apologize for not being more helpful in that dept.!

Good Luck!

Answer 2

I've made Watermelon Rind Preserves (Ball Blue Book recipe) before and a little bit of flesh left is OK, just leave as little as possible.  This turned out wonderful!  Here's is a recipe my friend passed along for pickles.

WATERMELON SWEET PICKLE

8 lb. watermelon rind

Salt

4 lb. sugar

1 qt. vinegar

1/2 c. pickling spice

Use thick watermelon rind. Pare; remove any red portion. Cut in 1 inch cubes. Using 1/2 cup salt to 1 quart water, make solution. Add enough to cover melon rind; let stand overnight. Drain; cover with boiling water; boil until rinds are tender but not soft.

Combine sugar, vinegar and pickling spice; boil 5 minutes. Drain rind. Add to sugar mixture, boil until rind is transparent; let stand overnight. Bring to boiling point; pack in 8 hot sterilized pint jars, filling to top; fasten covers at once.